What are the stories you tell yourself about yourself? Here are a few storytelling posts you may have missed. Click to read the full message.
“The greatest story you will ever tell is your own.”
“Stories can conquer fear, you know. They can make the heart bigger.”
“When I look back in five years, which of these options will make the best story?”
Where do you turn when you are seeking answers? Here are a few answer-related posts you may have missed. Click to read the full message.
“There is more than one right answer.”
“The reason I talk to myself is because I’m the only one whose answers I accept.”
In Seth Godin’s newest book, This is Marketing, he suggests that to be effective, all marketers must have the courage to create tension. Some people actively seek tension because it works to push or pull those we hope to serve over the gap from the present to a better future.
For those who resist change and prefer the relative comfort of the status quo, these influences/marketing messages fall on deaf ears. In such cases, the truth does not set us free, for fear of whatever future we wish to avoid.
Godin suggests that the status quo doesn’t shift because something is true, it shifts because culture changes, and the engine of culture is status.
Examine where you and others in your personal and professional communities embrace change and find yourself open and receptive to the abundance of marketing messages coming your way. Where might saying yes and embracing such new ways of thinking or acting improve your status?
Image from Unslpash by RawPixel
I hope you had a very happy holiday season, and that your new year is off to an outstanding start. Perhaps you are like most of us in that you set about to revisit your visions for the new year, and establish “stretch” goals for where you see yourself professionally and personally.
What progress, skills, habits, and achievements will put a big smile on your face? Perhaps most importantly, what daily changes will be required to realize what you deeply desire?
David Allen suggests, in today’s quote, that our visions and goals provide the leverage of our commitment to changing our present actions that will have us realize the futures we desire.
Consider displaying the following quote by Tuli Kupferberg in your personal or professional environment as a daily reminder to tap into one of the secrets to a better future:
“When patterns are broken, new worlds will emerge.”
Also consider writing it with the second part first:
“New worlds will emerge when patterns are broken.”
Are you prepared? Here are a few posts related to preparation you may have missed. Click to read the full message.
“I will prepare and someday, my chance will come.”
“You can’t reach for anything new if your hands are still full of yesterday’s junk.”
“If there is a single lesson that life teaches us, it’s that wishing doesn’t make it so.”
Image from Unsplash by Glenn Carstens-Peters
Elementary school, middle school, high school, and college are what we call traditional education. If you were lucky, perhaps your upbringing included books, encyclopedias, and of course, highly committed parents who emphasized education as a key doorway to a bright future.
For many, once we complete our traditional education, we slow down or even stop our efforts for continuous learning. Somehow that song, “No more teachers, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks” was ingrained in us, and we decided we were finished.
Consider yourself as your own home-schooling professor, creating the perfect curriculum just for you. The topics you choose are both important and relevant to a fully engaged and happy life. What could this self-driven education include that would result in a PhD in Thee?
How would you describe most of your relationships? Here are a few relationship-related posts you may have missed. Click to read the full message.
“You can’t help someone get up a hill without getting closer to the top yourself.”
“Examine the contents, not the bottle.”
“You see, but you do not observe. The distinction is clear.”
Image from mountainx.com
Perhaps no single person since Carl Sagan has excited the public more about the wonders of science than Neil deGrasse Tyson. His recent work as host of Cosmos: A Space-Time Odyssey goes steps beyond Sagan’s 1980 version, Cosmos: a Personal Voyage.
Learning about how our universe works and taking a cosmic perspective has me appreciate equally my smallness and my connection to the whole of everything. This perspective has given me a passion for learning and self-development. That, in turn, has provided me much joy and satisfaction, and permits me to embrace the impermanence and the miracle of being alive.
How would taking a far more cosmic perspective of your life provide you access to living an even more extraordinary one?
Image from Unsplash by Luis Cortes
Through my mindfulness efforts over the past few years, I realize that I live in three different time zones. At certain times, I reflect on the past and hold on or grasp for what seems like “the good one days.”
The bulk of my days, I try my best to remain present, in the moment, so that I can make the most of the here and now, and be grateful for all I have.
Of course, we would not be human if we did not demonstrate a healthy curiosity about the years ahead, knowing that our actions today can manifest our visions for the future.
How and in what ways can you increase your own happiness and life satisfaction by letting go of what’s gone, being grateful for what remains, and looking forward to what is coming?
What data or information do you use to form your opinions? Here are a few opinion-related posts you may have missed. Click to read the full message.
“Be careful how you interpret the world: it is like that.”
“The only way some of us exercise our minds is by jumping to conclusions.”